I’m excited to announce that my review of Nancy Marie Brown’s “Ivory Vikings” is now live in the new edition of the lovely online book review magazine Shiny New Books! Do pop over and read my review here. Shiny New Books is edited by a group of marvellous book bloggers, including my friend Simon, and is well worth a read – it’s divided up into Fiction, Non-Fiction and Reprints with a Bookbuzz section with all sorts of lovely essays and interviews etc. Enjoy!

And … the book flood begins. We’ve seen the horrors of my Mt TBR, but then we had the BookCrossing Birmingham Christmas Party, a bit early this year (and to my horror, I still have one book from last year’s haul on my TBR so I know I’m 51 weeks behind at the moment!).

Don’t they go together well, too!

My friend Sam made some great choices, one book off my wishlist (the poet Wendy Cope’s autobiography), one that she knew I’d like (Debbie Macomber at Christmas!) and a totally unknown to me book about travelling around Iceland by Mark Archer – I was thrilled to see the boat sculpture we know so well from the sea road around Reykjavik on the cover. The other one is, fortunately, a colouring book – a very nice one, too. And there is still, I promise, some chocolate – which is in the fridge.

And so it begins. I haven’t won two books on NetGalley or anything, of course I haven’t. I’m still reading the novel about Agile, but I have finished the last of the Forsyte Saga novels, so that review will be up next and I’m able to start the Dorothy Richardson “Pilgrimage” Virago novels very soon. Which are totally going to reduce the number of books on my actual TBR, right …

I have made more time for reading, so that’s working. Let’s hope it works really well, that’s all I can say.

Are you having a good reading month so far, or are festivities eating into your reading time?

She’s just always there, isn’t she, when you need her, and I can remember loads of bits of her poems that pop up suddenly. I can’t wait to read this – I’m glad I’m getting through my reading a bit more now so I’ll get to it sooner than this time next year!

Yes, they are addictive. In my defence, though, I’m not a new colourer – I have always coloured in, and I’m really pleased there are so many a) good books and b) good deals on nice pencils around at the moment. Colouring books and audio books would indeed work well.